PARIS -- An aide to ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Monday when he returns from treatment in France "he will not be the same Arafat," Ha'aretz reported.
Imad Shakur said while Arafat's health may have improved somewhat during the weekend "his condition is quite serious," and said the French medical team has not ruled out leukemia.
An article in Time magazine Monday cites one of his doctors as saying Arafat appears to have cancer of the digestive tract. But Palestinian officials in Paris said the current prevailing theory is that he is suffering from some kind of viral infection.
Arafat met Sunday for the first time with Shakur and other Palestinian officials who accompanied him to Paris.
"Even if he returns, and I hope that he will, he will not be the same Arafat, not for us, not for Israel, not even for himself," said Shakur. "(He is) an old, sick man, who has different needs."
Arafat's official spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said: "The latest tests have found that President Arafat does not suffer from any life-threatening illness, and what he has is curable."
